“Benayeem,” a voice called. “Ben, come back.”
He heard Isika but didn’t want to follow the sounds of her voice. He didn’t want to leave his mother there, in the desert, but it was too late because his eyes opened a c***k and she was gone, her face disappearing from sight, and someone else’s face was very close. It took several heartbeats to understand where he was. The sounds were so loud, the music of his nightmares, the fire l*****g at the edges of his vision. But the music was muffled, he realized as he came back to where he was. Isika. She was holding onto him, holding the music away.
Benayeem remembered. He wasn’t a five-year-old boy anymore. He wasn’t helpless. His mother was long gone and he was a singer. He was nearly fifteen and he was taller than his foster father. He had learn
